As reported byFox40, the city council has just approved a program called “Advance Peace” in which taxpayer funds will be utilized to pay criminals and gang members not to kill one another.

The report noted the impulsiveness of the decision to implement such a program:

After a violent weekend of suspected gang-related shootings, Tuesday the Sacramento City Council took action to reduce the bloodshed.

It approved a controversial program called Advance Peace, which offers cash stipends to gang members who remain peaceful.

The program is already in use in Richmond and is also being considered in Stockton. Some believe [sic] it can help curve violent crime.

The program is the brainchild of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who actually pushed a vote on it two weeks early because of one weekend’s worth of violence (are you now asking yourself why this brilliant idea has yet to occur to the mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel?).

“Let’s get going doing everything we can to save innocent lives,” Steinberg said.

The program will offer cash payments to “key gang agitators,” Fox40 reported, if they graduate high school and stay peaceful. The Lefties running the city of Richmond have said their program is reducing violent crime.

The program in Sacramento is expected to cost the city $1.5 million annually (at first).

Allen Brown, a friend of a recent shooting victim named Ernie Cadina, said the program is asinine.

“How’s the vote going to change anything? It’s up to the community to change, you know what I mean? It’s just senseless,” he told the local Fox affiliate.

Paying thugs not to be thugs is the latest “anti-crime” trend among pointy-headed liberals who have long abandoned principles of law and order that actually do reduce crime — and without the added cost of bribing the criminals.

If you don’t think that’s possible, a look at Washington, D.C.’s pilot “pay a criminal” program is a case study in stupidity. As noted by Twitchy, the D.C. City Council implemented a pilot program in February 2016 to pay “up to 200 people per year” who’ve been identified as being “at risk for committing a crime.” Are they kidding? Talk about gullible.

And what’s to stop the criminal element from actually committing more crime once he/she is getting a stipend? Are they going to be under surveillance 24/7 by police (or city councilmen and women)? What’s to stop someone getting a payment already from demanding a higher payment, which is extortion?

What’s more, most Americans don’t even support having their tax money used to pay off criminals; a 2016 survey by Rasmussen Reports found that 81 percent think such an idea absurd, compared to just 5 percent who say otherwise.

Under our system of federalism, states and cities are free to ‘experiment’ with public policies. We won’t all agree on those policies, but that doesn’t mean states and cities should not be permitted to remain test beds of democracy.

But honestly, paying criminals not to be criminals is a policy that is ripe for abuse and bound to fail. The best, and proven, ways to protect people are 1) robust police presence; 2) no restrictions on the Second Amendment; 3) long jail sentences for the worst offenders.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

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